This blog post has two parts. First is a brief account of my interactions with a beloved member of the Twitter community, who recently passed away after a long illness. She frequently tweeted about her experience with a dysfunctional healthcare system. In the second part I pivot to workflow technology and healthcare’s “Not My Problem” problem.

“In the BPM organization, delivering customer value and optimizing process performance are two central goals….This discourages the “not my problem” mentality and the practice of throwing issues over the functional wall.”

From a systems engineering perspective (one of my grad degrees), systems and workflows must be designed so as to not allow problems to disappear between the cracks (handoffs). In a business process framework (what used to be called workflow management systems) “problems” are “tasks”. These tasks are literally represented in the computer, so they can be tracked. If a problem/task is assigned to a person or role, the person or collection of people, cannot say “not my problem.” It IS their problem because the workflow model says it is their problem. The workflow model is a contract-like agreement to participate in, and execute, a workflow or process. If problems/tasks aren’t dealt with, then, because task status is transparent and visible to everyone, both during and after the fact, this is how BPM solves (or at least better manages) the “not my problem” problem.

Tasks also need to be tracked between healthcare organizations. For more information about the kind of interoperability necessary to avoid “Not My Problem” between organizations, see either of my five-part series…